


we have no apologies for being.

by angelica_barnes



Series: ABC [20]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic peggy, Asexual Angelica, Character Study, Child Abuse, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Families of Choice, Fluff and Angst, Friendship/Love, Genderfluid Aaron Burr, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Minor Character Death, Multi, Physical Abuse, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Harm, Suicidal Thoughts, Verbal Abuse, Washingdad, i promise everything turns out okay, it was madison i apologize, non-binary Lafayette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 00:30:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20017297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelica_barnes/pseuds/angelica_barnes
Summary: john has a piece of shit for a dad, no one knows who angelica is, eliza feels invisible, lafayette is proud of themself but has crap parents, alexander dumbs himself down and loves laurens, aaron doesn't like himself and doesn't think anyone else does either, thomas is a loner, maria has serious self-esteem issues and an asshole boyfriend, mulligan worries about his friends, theo is goth and hates black, peggy is angry and hates the world.oh, washington is the best dad in the history of the universe (obviously).yeah, that's basically the fic.





	we have no apologies for being.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "Wild Things" by Alessia Cara
> 
> PLAYLIST :  
> To Sir With Love - Glee version  
> Real Friends - Camila Cabello  
> I Was An Island - A.W.  
> Piece By Piece (American Idol version) - Kelly Clarkson  
> Make You Feel My Love - Adele  
> Skinny Love - Birdy  
> In The Bedroom Down The Hall - Dear Evan Hansen  
> If I Could Tell Her - Dear Evan Hansen  
> Lovely - Billie Eilish ft. Khalid  
> Stressed Out - twenty-one pilots  
> Same Love - Macklemore ft. Mary Lambert  
> breathin’ - Thomas Sanders version  
> Warrior - Demi Lovato  
> Can’t Help Falling In Love - Haley Reinhart version  
> Kiss Me - Ed Sheeran  
> Brother - Kodaline  
> 1994 - Alec Benjamin
> 
> OTHER PLAYLISTS:
> 
> Peggy:
> 
> Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls (I don’t want the world to see me / cause I don’t think that they’d understand / when everything’s made to be broken / I just want you to know who I am)  
> Fuckin’ Perfect - P!NK (pretty pretty please / don’t you ever ever feel / like you’re less than fuckin’ perfect)  
> Monsters - Rihanna & Eminem (I’m friends with the monsters under my bed)  
> Mad World - Tears For Fears (the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had)  
> Car Radio - twenty øne piløts (I find over the course of our human existence / one thing consists of consistence / and it’s that we’re all battling fear)  
> Here - Alessia Cara (I would rather be at home all by myself not in this room / with people who don’t even care about my well being)  
> Real Friends - Camila Cabello (I’m just looking for some real friends)  
> Give Me Love - Ed Sheeran (give me love like never before)
> 
> Theo:
> 
> Requiem - Dear Evan Hansen  
> You Are My Sunshine - Jasmine Thompson cover
> 
> Thomas:
> 
> Falling Slowly - Once
> 
> the daffodil symbolizes rebirth and new beginnings
> 
> i am almost ridiculously proud of this so without further ado, I HOPE YOU ENJOY :) :) :) <3 :) :) :)

**the best part of not knowing who you are**

**is that it gives you the perfect chance**

**to become the person**

**you want to be.**

**\- somebody**

  
  


John can feel his hands shaking at night. Even when he sleeps; he feels panic in his dreams. There’s no way to make it stop. He’s tried, curled his fingers into fists and punched the bathroom mirror, but it only makes him bleed.

Then his father will yell at him for destroying the room, and John will gesture for his siblings to leave as he stands to face Henry, fists clenched and bandages seeping red droplets. Black bags under his eyes and an empty glare full of acceptance towards an act that no one should be forced to accept.

Black like the ripped clothes he wears, with the chains and rings and grey beanie. Silver glass like his mother’s rosary around his neck, like the chokers and earrings he hides with his tendrils of hanging hair. Rusty blood like the old rings he’s braided into his curls.

Angry like the way his father looks at him.

“Faggot,” he’ll hiss, and John will simply close his eyes and wait for the blows.

He will not try to change any of it.

-

Angelica is the boy with bruises’ best friend. She is the one who slips her fingers through his in the morning and kisses his cheeks, pretending to be his girlfriend. She is the one who withstands the crude jokes the jocks make about her and his sex life, unaware that there isn’t one to taunt her with. She is the one who holds him in the boys’ stalls where he cries every day at three, afraid to go home.

She is the one who keeps him sane.

Angelica is no fool. She knows how the boys look at her. She knows they want her in their beds, stripped free of confining sweater dresses and heeled boots in favor of bare skin. She knows she’ll never give in to their demands, ignoring their catcalls until one of them tries to touch her and finds himself with a few broken teeth.

She watches the boy who does ballet during study, even with broken wrists gifted to him by the same jocks, and wonders how he lives with only one friend.

One dead friend.

-

Eliza remembers her mother’s lullabies, soft and kind. Her words soothing, her smile gentle.

She remembers Angelica watching from the doorway, clad in pink frills and bows and sad eyes.

She remembers the bright-eyed boy they fostered for three weeks, and how Angelica held his hand as if he was hers.

She remembers Angelica’s home in the bright-eyed boy’s arms, and how he found a home in hers, and how Eliza felt in her mother’s, not quite there but close enough.

She remembers Peggy’s yellow and red and green and black and white attire, her hair knotted in dreadlocks and lace skirts swishing around her legs. The free child, the one her parents couldn’t control.

Eliza is submissive, obedient, with no personality to call her own and only kisses with boys and girls from the park.

The boys would run and the girls would giggle out phrases like besties and Eliza would squat, next to the tree until Angelica found her in silence, with a blank expression and her hand held in the bright-eyed boy’s.

Eliza remembers how she burned, burned, burned with jealousy.

-

Lafayette masquerades as the perfect little prince their parents want. They act as the clean cut student, the charming boy, though they are a person with nothing “boyish” about them.

They cannot wear their dresses nor their make-up to school, because the principal will see and send word to his parents in France. If they hear of a single incident in which their “son” behaves even a little bit outside the boundaries they’ve set for them, Lafayette will be sent back to their mansion.

Away from their dresses and make-up. Away from Mulligan and the Washingtons and Alexander. Away from home.

But they smile. They smile their perfect smile and wear their perfect t-shirts and use their perfect pronouns.

And they do not allow themself to cry, even in the shower, because then they may be heard, and if someone heard, their whole masquerade would fall to pieces.

Their perfect, perfect, perfect masquerade.

-

Alexander know he’s too smart for the level of classes he’s in. All Honors, pssh. Easy. He can do his homework in fifteen minutes, two to three minutes per piece. He knows all of the subjects already, can get hundreds on every test without studying, but still, he’s in the tenth grade with the rest of them.

He doesn’t want to leave. Then they’ll treat him like a prodigy (which he is) and push him into college (where he wants to go) and grant him a successful, plush career (which he wants).

But then they’ll take him away from Lafayette. Mulligan. Angelica, Eliza, Aaron.

Laurens.

Alexander has bruises on his arms just like Laurens does, just as bad, just as blue, just as big. Bags under his eyes just like Laurens, just as dark, just as deep, just as dangerous. Trembling hands just like Laurens does, just as uncontrollable, just as unsteady, just as uncoordinated.

And all because they choose to link pinkies while walking down the hallway.

All because they choose to kiss knuckles while reading in the library.

All because they choose to touch lips while saying hello and goodbye at each other’s doorsteps.

All because they’re both boys.

-

Aaron has never been loved. Not by his father, not by his mother, not by the orphanages that were forced to keep him. The closest he’s come to love is what he has with Theodosia, which is nothing, really. Just kisses in an empty classroom during lunch, and post-it notes left in lockers when no one’s looking.

And Theo is Theo, but she doesn’t love Aaron. She can’t, anyway, because Aaron is so utterly unlovable that he sometimes laughs at himself in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep.

There’s Lafayette, the person who is so beautiful in makeup and heels and dresses, dresses that Aaron sometimes wishes he could be wearing, dresses that Aaron sometimes tries on backstage after everyone else has gone home, dresses that Lafayette’s friends have tailored specifically for them.

Friends. No one else really knows, Aaron thinks, just how meaningful that word really is.

And then there’s Alexander, who Aaron is partnered with in science, because nobody else wanted to be with either of them. And Aaron loves Alexander, not like he loves Theo or how Laurens loves Alexander, but how one might love their brother, and it hurts sometimes that Alexander barely thinks of him in comparison. And certainly not fondly.

Aaron knows intelligence, embodies it, is it with every fiber of his being but he will never be intelligent the way Alexander is.

Because he can never be good enough, no matter how hard he tries, and Aaron feels it, deep in bones, just how inadequate his existence is.

-

Thomas know better than to call himself likable. He’s the flower boy, the one who wears pink and has wild hair and is far too fierce for a fairy, in the others’ opinions. He needs to stop painting his nails yellow, needs to stop dancing to  _ The Nutcracker _ during football practice, needs to stop being himself and then maybe, maybe, someone will like him.

This is what they tell him, every day, and he accepts it with barely a glance after a while, though not that he must change.

He accepts that no one will like him, because he is who he is and even if James is dead, he will dance.

Because Jemmy loved to dance, and he no longer has a body to do so, so Thomas will dance for him.

Him and the girl who wears his same shades of pink and holds the real fairy’s hand.

-

Maria knows better than to believe she’s worth anything. Reynolds tells her so every day, and she wonders how she could have ever thought she loved him. She can’t even love boys.

Girls, she can love. Peggy, she can love. Eliza, she can love.

And she does.

Peggy’s kisses are burning fire and expired cocaine, hickeys and trashy crop-tops bought to anger mothers and fathers.

Eliza’s kisses are sadness and pity, bruises and imagination that isn’t meant for her.

Peggy doesn’t love people, she says, she loves sex with them. So Maria complies, and thinks of the two girls she loves; how one of them loves no one and one of them loves him.

Maria is not such a fool so as to think either of them has ever cared.

-

Mulligan is not a hero like his namesake. He has saved no lives nor graced any book pages, and yet he has been hailed Hercules.

“Herc,” by the ones whom he dares to call friends, Alexander and Laurens and Lafayette. Because friends is all they can be to one another, despite Alexander and Laurens’ sideways glances at each other and Lafayette’s mouth drunkenly clashing into his every once in awhile, lipstick stains staying for days afterwards.

But the world is not so forgiving for love. It demands hard work, time, patience, and the willingness to keep your head down and let it mock you.

And Mulligan does, because his friends are already too damaged to survive the fall.

So he takes it for them.

-

Ever since she was young, Theo has loved the sun. Its brightness, its warmth, its yellowness. Theo has always loved yellow.

But she isn’t pretty enough to wear yellow, as said by her older sister, who drives drunk and dies in an accident two years later.

They wear black to the funeral, and Theo gets ready in the room she shared with her dead sister. She digs through the drawers and finds the dark eyeshadow and lipstick that her sister used to wear everyday, just to seem cool, and tries it on. At the time, it’s not because she misses her sister, but because she spites her.

And soon she finds that people fear her when she wears black, and so much of it at that, and she finds that when people fear her, she gets left alone. So black becomes her new favorite color.

Aaron is the only one who dares to try and be close to her, and after awhile, she finds she doesn’t mind.

After all, his smile is bright. Warm. Tainted yellow, like the sun.

-

Peggy is youngest child, the small one, the invisible one. She blends into the background, behind her sisters at all times, despite her constant attempts to show people who she is.

So here’s a list of words she’s found to describe herself because apparently no one wants to take the time to find out her truth on their own.

Aromantic. Homosexual. Woman. Adopted. Rebellious. Charming. Fun-loving. Caring. Wild. Fashionable. Brave. Beautiful. Smart. Kind. Amazing. Talented. Friendly. Funny. Class clown. Angry.

Angry.

Angry.

Angry.

And it comes out, in her rock music, in her fashion, in her kisses with Maria and the way she hates the people who try and date her. She does not want to be patronized, demeaned, belittled. She is alive, roaring, ready to conquer.

She is a force to be reckoned with and she refuses to be thought of as anything else.

-

None of them have homes, but they all have somewhere to sleep.

-

**and these children**

**that you spit on**

**as they try to change their worlds**

**are immune to your consultations.**

**they’re quite aware of what they’re going through.**

**\- David Bowie (The Breakfast Club)**

-

Henry Laurens is a very well-known politician. He is hated by the free and adored by the bigots. He abuses his son for being gay and his followers praise him for “putting that boy is his place” and “straightening him out”.

Henry often forgets that his son may be mute, may have anxiety, may be skinnier than he should be, but John Laurens is not somebody you mess with.

He is fire and freedom and morality, and he will defend every last breath he is given, no matter how easily it is taken away by Henry’s rough hands.

Henry does not know that his son is in love with Alexander Hamilton, and that John will do damn near anything for the people he loves.

Henry will never understand this, because John has never done anything for him and has proven he never will, and Henry is convinced that his son loves him.

John does not bother trying to explain to his father that he doesn’t, because Henry Laurens has no idea what love is.

-

Angelica is adopted first. Phillip and Catherine Schuyler have just been the unfortunate victims of a miscarriage, their fourth unlucky child, and want someone to fill the gaping holes in their chests. They meet the shining star of an eight year old and fall in love with her, ignoring how she screams at being taken from the boy whose hand she always holds.

Eliza is born first. Angelica’s parents keep trying, despite their love for their adoptive daughter, and are blessed on their fifth try with a beautiful pale girl who could be mistaken for Snow White. Right from the start, Eliza is kinder, purer, better, and Angelica hates her sister as much as she loves her for being the favorite no matter how hard Angelica tries.

Peggy is fostered first. Eliza’s parents want their children to be well-versed in kindness, and they see caring for others as a way to teach that kindness. Peggy is the only one they keep for good, as she charms them into adopting her almost as soon as she’s stepped in the door, and it doesn’t seem to matter how much trouble she gets into, Phillip and Catherine Schuyler will never give her up.

Angelica gradually pulls away. Eliza cannot fathom acting outside her parents’ approval. Peggy lives in a haze of high and all three are unhappy.

Angelica finds another boy whose hand to always hold.

-

Lafayette is supposed to be a prince. They are supposed to be straight. They are supposed to be a boy.

Lafayette is none of these things.

They tell everyone that their parents have sent them to America for a higher education, for a broadened view of the world, for a chance to find people they can be themself with.

In truth, Lafayette’s parents have sent them to America in the hopes that they will hate it. That they will see that the way Americans live - freely, fearlessly, defiantly, proudly, equally - and hate it.

And Lafayette does see, but they love it. They cannot stop loving it, cannot stop loving the barrettes and bows they weave into their hair, cannot stop loving the poofy skirts and high heels they prance around in, cannot stop loving the boy by the name of Hercules Mulligan who is poor enough to qualify for free lunch but never eats it just so he can make beautiful dresses for Lafayette to wear.

Lafayette will not stop loving him.

-

George Washington is a history teacher. No matter the time period, Washington has the strict belief that history should never be repeated, as it is proof that war never ends, and Washington would hate to be the indirect cause of another severance of ties between friends.

This being said, Washington stands for the mistreatment of no child.

He is one of the students’ favorites, because of this. He is trustworthy, loving, and gentle. He is one of the few teachers who truly believes in them, who truly cares for them, who truly accepts them as they are.

Washington has no children of his own, and so when he hears of John Laurens’ unfortunate situation, he makes sure to invite him and his siblings to study sessions every day after school, in which the children may do whatever they wish. He learns from Laurens of the Schuylers’ plights, and pulls them into tea parties in his classroom in which they can speak of whatever they wish. He receives from the Schuylers information regarding Lafayette’s home life back in France, and welcomes them into his house for breakfast-for-dinners, in which they are free to wear whatever they wish.

Lafayette arrives at Washington’s doorstep one Monday with a hopeful look in their eyes and adoption papers, and Washington signs them without a second thought and shows his child to their bedroom.

-

Alexander is not familiar with comforting phrases. He’s never heard, “It’ll be okay.” He’s never been told, “Everything’s gonna be alright.” He’s never felt someone’s arms around him, someone’s breath in his ear, someone’s voice in his veins screaming, “WE WILL BE ALRIGHT.”

“I love you,” is just as much of a stranger to him.

Even after Laurens, those three words are not ones Alexander has heard. Not because the feeling isn’t there; Laurens and Alexander are in love, deep love, true love, the kind of love one swears to die for. But it has not been said in so many words, merely in the gentle kisses they share in locker rooms and closets and classrooms, light touches on cheeks and arms and hips, loose linking of pinkies as they walk down the hall to classes.

Alexander feels the bruises on his sides as painstakingly as one might feel their heart breaking, but it is Laurens’ bruises that hurt him.

Yet no matter how many times he is told, Alexander does not believe love is a weakness.

Love is strength, or else Alexander would be dead.

-

Aaron’s parents don’t mind him.

They don’t love him either, but they don’t mind his existence, and that’s a start in Aaron’s eyes.

Aaron stares at his feet when he walks down the hall, to avoid seeing others’ expressions as they take him in. He taps drum beats against his legs with his fingers and pretends the ripped denim beneath his fingers is smooth silk. He wear scarves like wraps on the days he feels too sick to go to school and his door is locked and no one’s home to see him run his clammy hands under cold water to make them stop shaking.

Theo is the first person he tells. The first person he dares. But still, “I’m different” is all he says.

It’s to Lafayette that he finally confesses, “I’m a boy but I think I might also be a girl?” in one breath, and then bursts into tears as they embrace him.

The next day, Lafayette takes Aaron to Mulligan’s studio to pick out a dress or two, and when Aaron looks in the mirror and loses his breath, they whisper in his ear with a smile, “Pretty woman.”

And Aaron cries, big fat tears streaming down her cheeks, but she feels beautiful for the first time in her life and that’s all that matters.

-

Thomas loves girls. He’s loved girls for as long as he can remember, is as straight as he possibly could be, found no pleasure in the one kiss he and Jemmy shared back in sixth grade during a game of spin the bottle.

Well, maybe a little, but the point is he also and mostly loves girls.

That doesn’t change the fact that he can’t stop listening to Macklemore, doesn’t change the fact that magenta is his favorite color, doesn’t change the fact that he’d do anything to play the Sugar Plum Fairy in Boston one day.

That doesn’t change the fact that he picks flowers from his mother’s grave and weaves them into his hair, doesn’t change the fact that he sometimes ducks his head beneath the clear water of his bathtub as long as he can just so he can be faced with how good it feels to breathe, doesn’t change the fact that he can’t feel anything some days and just wants someone to teach him how.

All it changes is that as much as he loved and still loves Jemmy, he can and does love Angelica Schuyler, and Thomas has other things to worry about, like the bandages he’s got on most of his fingers as if that’ll help how close they feel to snapping from his hands.

-

Theo wears a locket around her neck. She falls asleep with it clutched in her fingers, the clock on its front with roman numerals faded from fingerprints. Most people think there’s a picture of her family inside. Those who don’t think it’s her sister. They’re all wrong.

The only one who knows who’s in the locket is Aaron, dressed in pink ruffles and silver bangles she got from Laf. Theo finds her cute when she’s like this, all excitable and free, and finds him beautiful, all soft and curious.

Theo doesn’t know why she tells Aaron things. She doesn’t know why she kisses him and hugs her and loves him/her, regardless of what she/he is wearing. Aaron is a living reminder of all she wants to be; light.

Her black weighs her down, the eyeshadow mixing with the leftovers of early morning drifting, and she knows her history teacher sees it. How she fiddles with her locket, and tears at her lace, and drags her combat boots across the floor, drained of the will to run.

Washington is the one who asks her about Aaron, as if she/he could ever be the problem, and Theo smiles tightly before gathering her things and disappearing out the door.

She brushes her thumb over the clock and fumbles with the lock as her vision blurs with tears. A sob escapes her as she gazes down at what she misses most of all.

Inside the locket is a portrait of Theo herself, when she was ten, when she was happy, painted three days before her sister died.

Three days before she stopped wearing yellow, a white daisy tucked behind her ear.

-

Maria often doesn’t remember things. She lives more in the clouds than on the grass, and she follows the straight and paved road like a drunk, stumbling around until she finds herself off the road completely. James was waiting there, in the bushes that lined the crooked path she was set on, like the wolf for little red.

She wears red because it scares people. Because it keeps them away, keeps their hands off her and at their sides, keeps their eyes off her and on their feet, keeps their hearts off her and in someone else’s much less clumsy hands.

Peggy is reckless with Maria’s heart, leaving it on the swings alone in the cold long after dark. She drops it sometimes and doesn’t fumble to catch it; sometimes she drops it with a frown as she stares coldly into Maria’s wide and pleading eyes.

James doesn’t have a single piece of it, but just because he can’t bruise her heart doesn’t mean he can’t bruise her everywhere else. He bites her, kicks her,  _ rapes _ her and she turns a blind eye to his abuse the same way she turns a blind eye to Eliza, watching her in that beautiful blue sundress of hers, blushing like a flower that’s been given all it needs to grow.

Maria’s a weed, worming her way up into the homes of beautiful flowers she doesn’t deserve to know, and it’s only when a daffodil asks her to stay after class that she finally shrivels, whimpering and shedding dew drops from her petals to her leaves, shaking down to her stem.

She doesn’t tell Washington what James has done to her, only chokes out his name. But it’s enough. It’s a start.

James is gone that day, and the next day, and the day after that, and Washington shows Maria a bedroom in his house covered in red, and she falls asleep for the first time beneath its soft covers in creamy, cushy silence, worry lines gone from her face.

Not a single harsh knock haunts her dreams.

-

Mulligan finds peace in quiet. The way the wind whistles in harmony with the waves crashing if you listen hard enough, the long notes held out by birds and the conversations of passing strangers all melding together into one large chaotic symphony.

But it’s the chaos that calms him.

Laf kisses him goodbye every day, with no thought to those watching, and Mulligan wishes he could be like them; free from others’ opinions. He knows Laurens and Alexander feel the same, their glances towards each other longer and deeper as the days and kisses drag on.

Mulligan wonders why there are people who hate love. Homophobes, heartbreakers, the heartbroken. He can’t comprehend it, how, why someone would ever hate the thing that saved him, saved his parents, saved so many. After all, it certainly isn’t money they’re living for.

He works tirelessly on Laf’s dresses, wanting desperately to create something worthy of their beauty, of their confidence, of their being. He loves them, with every fiber of his human body, and he wants them to know without him ever having to speak a word aloud.

But Laf manages the impossible task first, a gentle hand on Mulligan’s arm and a nervous smile, painted nails shining against a white lunch tray topped with sandwiches, vegetables, cookies and milk.

“Eat,” they say softly, and Mulligan asks himself for the millionth time how love is hated (as he bites into his first meal in days) if  _ this _ is what love  _ is _ .

-

Washington sees Lafayette’s arms around Mulligan, their mouths pressed together, their hands clasped. He knows love, just as he sees it, and Laf never has to tell their professor about any of the love in these halls because Washington can find it all on his own.

No matter how hard they try to hide it.

Laurens and Alexander’s kisses.

Maria and Eliza’s hugs.

Aaron and Theo’s high fives.

Angelica and Thomas’ glances.

Love is not so hard to find, even though Washington finds he’s never looking for it.

-

His door is always open, and his students flood in all at their own paces, but come home all the same.

-

**there are places in the heart you won’t even know exist**

**until you love a child.**

**\- Anne Lamott**

-

Washington assumes, at first, that the sisters will want to share a room. They seem so inseparable, always holding hands or hugging, but Angelica cuts into him with a glare when he asks them.

So instead Eliza gets a room with blue walls, Angelica with pink, and Peggy with bright, vibrant yellow, rivaling even the sun in brightness. None of them seem to sleep easy, all up in front of the TV together watching Sesame Street at 3 AM.

He learns over time that it’s their show, the one they watch together. Normally, there’s  _ Law & Order _ ,  _ Grimm _ , and  _ Castle _ for Peggy,  _ Once Upon A Time _ and  _ The Good Place _ for Eliza, and  _ Trevor Noah _ ,  _ Seth Meyers _ ,  _ Stephen Colbert  _ and  _ John Oliver _ for Angelica.

All their comforts, from gore to romance to political humor, he learns who they are. And he’s amazed by every single part of them.

But it’s their conversations, the ones he has with them and the ones they have with each other, that really solidify his opinions of them.

-

“There are days that we can’t breathe,” are the first words Hercules Mulligan ever says to his history teacher. Washington immediately looks up from the dishes he’s slathering in soap, at the strong and silent mystery reading Leo Tolstoy at his kitchen island.

If they weren’t alone in the room, Washington wouldn’t have thought Mulligan was the one who had said anything at all.

“Why’s that?” He asks, careful not to overwhelm his curiosity with concern, because he knows how kids can get. Especially ones like those he’s created a home for; they’ll lock their doors sometimes when they see him coming down the hall. Even if it’s not towards them.

Mulligan hardly moves. “Dunno. Fear, sometimes. Not enough sleep, someone yelling. There are times it’s just because Laurens smiles and none of us are used to that since he never does.”

Washington turns around, sadness in his eyes. “And you can’t breathe?”

Mulligan still won’t look at him. “It’s like a panic attack. You don’t realize it’s coming, this life-changing event that you can’t remember ever happening before even though it has, probably a few billion times at least somewhere in the world.”

It’s then that his piercing chocolate eyes raise to meet Washington’s, calm and guarded.

“It’s what it feels like to lose.”

Washington can’t say he entirely understands Mulligan. He knows it’s Mulligan that Lafayette loves and trusts the most out of anybody. He knows it’s Mulligan that Alexander hides behind whenever there’s a storm, huddled in Laurens’ arms. He knows it’s Mulligan that Laurens goes to for stitching up after he gets into fights at school (or at least, that’s where Washington’s been told they take place).

It takes hours and days for him to realize that Mulligan is the protector, the one who keeps secrets and acts as a shield and observes Washington’s every move just in case he actually turns out to be a threat to any of them.

“Be patient,” Mulligan says about Laurens and Peggy, because neither trusts adults to care about them.

“Be gentle,” he says about Aaron and Maria, because neither knows what it feels like to be comfortable with who they are.

“Be encouraging,” he says about Alexander and Angelica, because neither can force out half the words they want to about all they know and can do.

“Be accepting,” he says about Lafayette and Thomas, because neither has ever had someone tell them they’re beautiful for who they are and nothing else.

“Be understanding,” he says about Theo and Eliza, because neither feels that anyone in the world has ever known them.

“Be careful,” he says about all of them, and Washington assumes he’s including himself, though with Mulligan it’s always hard to tell.

Because while he tells Washington all the dangerous secrets these dangerous kids keep, for all the history Washington has taught in his years, he hasn’t learned a single ounce of Mulligan’s.

-

It’s Lafayette who learns to trust Washington first. The professor fully believes that it’s because Lafayette is just naturally a very trusting person, until he sees how tightly Laf holds to Mulligan’s hand when they walk down the street, shooting subtle yet terrified glances at every passerby.

None of the kids he now cares for trust many people, including him, he then realizes. Laurens and Alexander barely speak in front of him (though he later finds out they barely speak to anybody) and the sisters make a point never to look him in the eye (spare Angelica, who knows full well just how fierce her gaze really is). Aaron and Theo he hardly sees, hidden away in Theo’s black room, making almost no noise (he learns later they’re painting planets and moons and galaxies on the walls). Thomas dances in the living room and scrambles to stop as soon as he hears Washington’s footsteps coming down the hall.

Lafayette is the first person of them all that Washington feels wants him around, wants him in the house, wants him to be a part of their broken little family.

“You can join us, if you want,” they say, looking up at him with hopeful brown eyes as Washington passes the couch, where they’re all gathered with eyes glued to  _ Lilo and Stitch _ . “If you please.”

Washington almost doesn’t catch what Laf really means by the phrase, not until he sees their hand clasped firmly in Mulligan’s.

He sits down in the empty rocking chair, smiling reassuringly at Alexander, who jumps and looks at him in alarm as Laurens draws him closer, subtly closing his hands around Alexander’s shaking ones.

Lafayette beams at him.

“Thanks, Dad,” Lafayette says, turning back to the movie, and Washington opens his mouth but nothing comes out, heart caught in his throat.

-

Angelica Schuyler takes Washington a few days to figure out. Understandably so, as her entire personality contradicts itself.

Protects her sisters with her life; doesn’t want to be anywhere near them.

Wears pink every day with no exceptions; hates anyone calling her a girly girl.

Knows all the answers to all the questions in his class, could explain them all with lectures, could teach his class and every other she takes and yet passes with B’s and C’s; has punched any person who dares to call her less than a genius.

It’s only when he walks in on her doing calculus equations on her bedroom wall that he understands (maybe not completely, but enough).

“No one knows how smart you are, do they?”

She whips around at the sound of his voice, her chipped nails digging into the wall as she holds on. Washington smiles at the sight of her in one of Martha’s old magenta sweaters, knee-length on Angelica and drawing his eyes to her silver rings and panda head slippers. She glares at him in suspicion and he meets her gaze, grinning warmly.

“You’re taking algebra, aren’t you? You should be in college math classes, y’know, if you’re doing all this at this age.”

She scoffs and turns back to the wall, scribbling more numbers down and muttering under her breath. He watches, until she turns around again and jumps off the bed, crossing her arms and staring him down.

“You can go away. I’m not gonna talk to you.”

He smiles at her, which only seems to infuriate her more.

“Why do you pretend to know less than you do?”

She shrugs, walks over to the desk, and opens her laptop to a science article.

“I don’t like the way people look at me. I’d rather they leave me alone because I’m what they expect than have them patronize me because ‘oh, a girl could never be that smart’.”

He’s quiet for a minute, taking in the way her eyes brighten as she reads, even as she tries to hide it. “Has anyone ever said that about you?”

She looks up at him with narrowed eyes. “To my face. To my logical, genius, nerdy dorky geeky fucking face.”

She stands and storms out the door, slamming it behind her and leaving him in her room.

Alone.

So he wanders.

He finds hand-drawn smiley faces on every piece of furniture. Stories and poems on every door. Paintings on every window. Equations and experiments and notes on her mirrors. Facts on her blankets.

She’s turned her room into a classroom.

He doesn’t dare bring it up again, only leaves a stack of new textbooks and notebooks on her bed with a note.

_ Any college you want. Don’t worry about tuition. _

And she comes up to him in the kitchen a few days later, a crumpled piece of paper in her hand that she gives him with a blank face.

_ Colombia _ , it says, and he smiles at her shuffling and fidgeting and says, “Sure.”

It’s the first time he ever sees her grin. A simple smile doesn’t even compare.

-   
  


The first times James Reynolds shows up at his door, Washington is assaulted by a cold feeling, similar to dread but not far off from fear either. The man’s sneer is enough to keep him from opening the door all the way, and the way he holds himself, with an air of arrogance and vanity, doesn’t help.

“Can I help you?” Washington asks, hearing one of his kids come bounding down the stairs behind him. He ignores it, refusing to take his eyes off the mean-looking man in front of him; at least, he does until the footsteps suddenly stop and a choked gasp sounds from the child in his peripheral vision.

He turns his head to see Maria, frozen in terror with her eyes locked on the man leering at her from Washington’s porch.

“James?” She whimpers, and that’s all it takes for Washington to relock the door and gather Maria in his arms. He leads her to her bedroom and they watch James Reynolds leave out the window, Maria wrapped in the safety of her purple blankets and her professor’s arms.

He holds her until she stops shivering and she whispers, “Can I have Lizzie?”

Washington kisses her head and complies, gently coaxing Eliza from her room and down the hall to Maria’s, where the bruised girl waits.

Eliza doesn’t hesitate a moment before pressing her lips to Maria’s, soft and light, only deep enough to convince the other girl she’s real and there. Their fingers twine together on the comforter as Eliza sits down beside Maria, whispering something in her ear.

Washington turns to leave, closing the door behind him on the intimate moment, when he hears Maria’s gravelly voice, threadbare and vulnerable.

“Thank you,” she rasps, and he catches her weak smile through the crack there’s still left to close. “Papa.”

Washington smiles warmly, heart swelling.

“Of course, my darling.”

-

Theo is the kind of girl who talks to herself and people who aren’t there. She hides in her closet beneath large comforters and reads picture books by flashlight. She uses her headphones even when she’s alone and hums  _ Requiem _ under her breath as if it’s a song about rainbows. She scribbles the lyrics to  _ You Are My Sunshine _ on the corners of her projects and essays and notes, and Washington finds her intriguing.

She’s the kind of girl who tries so hard to be happy, but feels to be invisible she must not be.

She can’t be quiet while wearing loud things.

But Washington notices her hesitance and subtle smiles. They come out whenever she sees something bright and vibrant, whenever they pass the prom dress section at Macy’s, whenever they go to the mall and all the kids disperse to their favorite stores with promises to call Washington to check in.

He notices that when Laurens wanders into Hot Topic, she follows, though her eyes are clearly drawn to the Macy’s next door. So when the next shopping day comes, he asks her to come with him.

Theo does, hesitantly, only after Aaron squeezes her hand and leaves to shop with Laf. Her hands twitch as her eyes wander, and he takes one of them gently in his own.

She calms suddenly, but doesn’t seem to notice.

He leads her into Macy’s, into the dress section, and lets go of her hand. She just stands there, at a loss for what to do, but he sees how her eyes flicker to a yellow dress with white roses embroidered into it.

She looks up at him with nervous eyes, her voice quiet and small. “What?”

Washington smiles warmly. “Pick out anything you like.”

Her eyes widen, jaw dropping. Her head swivels as she turns to take in everything there is, and then as she looks back up at him.

“Really?”

It’s hopeful, but slightly subdued, as if she’s afraid to ask. He just squeezes her shoulder.

“Really.”

From then on there are flowers and pearls and maroon lipstick, pastel and rainbow dresses with white 1970’s style boots, mixed with the occasional black lace and fishnets.

And always a locket, cradling a picture of her sister, parents, Aaron, and now, Washington sees when he comes to kiss her goodnight, him.

-   
  


Sometimes Washington wonders whether what he sees are what his kids make him. If it’s all by accident, if they’ve just been caught in bad moments, and with Laurens and Alexander, he thinks that’s true. They’ve never shared an ounce of information with him willingly.

But Aaron, Washington believes, is trying to tell him things. The best he can, wearing headbands with bows and tulle dresses and making pancakes at five a.m., long before anyone else is up.

“Are you a girl, Aaron?” Washington asks one morning, unable to fall back asleep after finding his child in the kitchen for the fifth time that week, pouring cake batter into pancake mix. Aaron’s eyes are wide and nervous, flicking from side to side as if searching for an escape.

Washington just smiles. “I wouldn’t mind. I’d love you anyway.”

Aaron smiles weakly, more of a grimace really, but there’s a twinkle in his eyes that Washington knows well. Aaron shrugs and puts down the wooden spoon, playing with the hem of his oversized t-shirt.

“Sometimes. I feel like a boy today, though.”

Washington nods and smiles, shuffling into the lit kitchen and grabbing a mug from the cabinet. He fills it with chocolate milk as Aaron watches with a tentative grin.

“I thought you drank coffee, like all teachers.”

Washington looks up, brown coating his upper lip, and laughs.

“I don’t like bitterness,” he says, and helps Aaron finish the rest of the meal; different pancakes for everyone.

Angelica loves her blueberry, Eliza politely cuts into her chocolate chip while Peggy scarfs down another helping of pumpkin, Laf and Mulligan share raspberry and strawberry, Theo kisses Aaron (digging into his cake batter) on the side of the head before biting into peanut butter, and Thomas nibbles on his banana walnut.

Only Alexander and Laurens abstain, hands curled over each other’s on the table. Laurens stares in disbelief at the vanilla pancakes in front of him, and Alexander ignores the plain ones on his plate in favor of his silent… whatever they are.

Washington doesn’t tell them to eat or ask them what’s wrong; he knows better.

-   
  


“I’ve met your father,” Washington says, out of the blue on the third day he’s ever seen Laurens without Alexander by his side. Laurens’ head snaps up from his sketch pad, a lifelike picture of Alexander beneath his shaking hand.

He stares at Washington with fear, and the professor can hear Laurens’ breaths coming quicker. The boy says not a word, lips sealed shut of any secrets.

“I didn’t like him,” Washington remarks, turning away, back to his book. He doesn’t say anything else, waiting for Laurens’ response, be it silence or scorn.

Instead, he hears frantic scribbling and looks up to find a paper being thrust at him. Laurens looks at him with desperate eyes as he unfolds the note, slowly and carefully.

_ I don’t either. _

Washington smiles sadly at the boy curled in his rocking chair, handing back the paper. “I figured as much. Is he the reason you don’t talk?”

Laurens shrugs, writing fast again. He gives the note back a moment later.

_ Dunno. Alex says you can be okay sometimes. Is that true? _

Washington feels something in him break. He’s sure it’s reflected in his eyes when he looks back up at Laurens. “I’d like it to be. What makes you doubt it?”

More scribbling.

_ Nothing. I trust him. _

Washington smiles softly. He remembers what it felt like to have someone like that. Martha’s long gone, but he won’t forget.

“Anyone else?”

_ No. _

Washington smiles at Laurens. “Well, I hope that one day you can trust me.”

He turns back to his book, believing the conversation over, when one more note flutters down into his lap.

_ Alex says you love us. Does that mean me too? _

His head snaps up, reassurance on his tongue, but Laurens is gone.

That night, Washington leaves a post-it note on Laurens’ door.

_ I love you, son. _

-

Peggy isn’t the quiet kind of kid.

She feels, and she screams it, proud or defiant or rebellious, but never ashamed, her emotions laid out bare for all the world to see.

She wears her heart on her sleeve, literally. Tons of tattoos paint her skin, never hidden by her black bras or transparent white tank-tops. Scribbled song lyrics on converse, stickers on the skateboard in her arms, stars and smiley faces and hearts with initials in sharpie all over her ripped skinny jeans. Red lipstick and eyeliner and dark nails, hair in messy dreadlocks and strange off-brand hats she finds in thrift stores.

Washington doesn’t try to talk to her. Even if she wanted to listen, she couldn’t hear him over the rock music she blasts in her room.

Besides, the door’s locked. It won’t open, no matter how much he mangles the knob or how much Bon Jovi and Nickelback and Avril Lavigne shake it.

So he leaves her be, much as it bothers him.

He asks Angelica about her, why she’s like this, what can he do. Angelica eyes her sister’s bedroom door and shrugs.

“Listen, I guess.”

She leaves Washington floundering for words, because he has.

Right?

Until he notices the lyrics on her shoes are from  _ Iris _ .

The tattoos peeking from behind her fishnets from  _ Fuckin’ Perfect _ .

The scrawl on the yellow walls of her bedroom in blue sharpie from  _ Monsters _ .

_ Mad World _ blasting from her headphones,  _ Car Radio _ on her notebooks,  _ Here _ doodled all over her frayed leather school bag.

_ Real Friends _ curled around her wrist in mismatched beads.

“What can I do?” He asks her late one night, and her eyes snap up from  _ Law & Order _ to meet his own wide, desperate ones. “What can I do to make you happy?”

Peggy doesn’t say anything, eyes falling back on the screen. He waits, heart clenching at the thought of her answer maybe being, “Nothing.”

Helpless.

Tense silence for seconds, then minutes, and he turns to leave when -

“Listen, I guess.”

He looks at her but she hasn’t moved. He chalks it up to hearing things and goes to bed, expecting to wake up to her ignorance the next morning.

Instead he hears  _ Give Me Love _ , and he tries his best.

-

Thomas he thinks about the least. He seems completely comfortable with who he is, wearing as much pink as he pleases and dancing to the music Peggy blasts through her headphones and holding his own against Alexander, with whom he’s constantly at odds.

Instead his insecurities are defined by the people around him, Washington finds.

Thomas can’t stand Alexander, who in turn can’t stand him. He can’t talk to Angelica, who watches him over the rims of her books. He can’t look at Laf or Aaron, who each wear dresses and make-up almost every day.

Instead he mumbles to himself about someone named Jemmy, and spends hours dancing around in the dark, feet blistered and eyes closed.

He looks at peace, but Washington can’t help but feel he’s far from it. Maybe it’s because he passes in his research papers with the lyrics of  _ Falling Slowly _ in the margins.

“You’re sad,” he tells Thomas one day. The boy barely moves, not acknowledging the sentiment. Washington can’t say he’s surprised.

“Why?”

He waits. Normally this rewards him with an answer.

Instead he receives a question.

“What do you care?”

He lies awake that night with Thomas’ voice ringing in his ears.

_ What do you care? _

_ What do you care? _

_ What do you care. _

Washington sighs and gets out of bed, hand brushing over his wife’s side. For a moment, he can’t recall how long she’s been gone.

He wanders down the hall towards Thomas’ room, only to find it empty. Whispers sound from down the hall, accompanied by quiet laughs, and he follows the voices to Angelica’s room.

Thomas is there, fingers carding through hundreds of photographs that litter the floor. Angelica is with him, hands brushing against his as they search the pile for something.

Angelica murmurs, “He was awesome.”

Thomas laughs softly. “Yeah.”

Washington is left to wonder who, until the kids all leave for school (Lafayette says, “I love you,” and for a moment Washington is stunned into silence) and he wanders into Angelica’s room with the vacuum.

There’s a single photograph left on the floor. A boy of about fifteen smiles up at Washington, unruly black curls and chocolate skin, an arm around Thomas and his lips to Thomas’ cheek.

Washington bends over and picks the photograph up, turning it over. On the back is a date, with a scribbled note towards the bottom.

_ May 13, 2015 _

_ Just a reminder that you’re never alone. _

_ \- Jemmy _

Carefully, Washington walks down the hall and places the photograph on Thomas’ pillow. Then he makes his way to the kitchen and settles at the island, waiting with his fingers wrapped around a mug of chocolate milk.

Jemmy, huh. Thomas has some explaining to do.

But in his own time, Washington reasons. He can wait.

Yet time goes on, and so does Thomas, and all his silence explains is just how painfully, painfully alone he is.

-

It’s Lafayette who tells Washington about them.

Laurens and Alexander, by far Washington’s most private pair. Always together, never apart, yet hardly speaking. Their relationship seems to be entirely made up of tiny touches: lips to ear, fingers to hair, arms to waist. And yet their connection runs deep, earth deep, something unbreakable, something that Washington would willingly bet has been reoccuring in different lifetimes since the beginning.

He isn’t witness to most of their moments, as they spend most of their time in each other’s rooms. They sleep in Laurens’ bed, facing each other with their hands clasped tight. Every night, and they have whispered conversations by nightlight, ones that Washington can’t quite hear. Just bits of, every once in awhile, a puzzle for him to stay up late pondering over. (He learns later, after asking Lafayette if Laurens is mute, that the freckled boy has only ever spoken to one person in his entire life, and then nothing more because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out who that person is.)

“See you tomorrow.”

“Don’t dream of oceans.”

“We’re gonna make it. I think.”

He only ever hears one of these conversations in full, on a night that’s as calm as Christmas Eve, silent with children pretending to sleep.

Alexander’s voice is hoarse as he murmurs, shivering in an oversized sweatshirt and curling his fingers around Laurens’. From the doorway, Washington can see how starkly different their hands are; pale with bitten nails and ragged cuticles tangled in freckled tan with nails black as night and bruised knuckles.

“John?”

Washington is taken aback; to anyone else, Laurens is Laurens, no other name attached to him. Washington supposes it’s for good reason, though he has no idea what that reason could possibly be.

“Hmm?”

“Would you marry me?”

Laurens opens his gentle green eyes, always storming with rage and sadness, now tranquil and sleepy. He pulls his hand from Alexander’s and reaches out his arm, pulling the shivering boy against him. Alexander immediately melts into Laurens’ embrace, warmth consuming him.

Laurens’ answer is so quiet Washington almost misses it.

“Yeah, one day. Sure.”

Alexander hums and pulls the blanket up over him and Laurens, the boys’ breathing soon slowing into snores.

It’s Lafayette who tells Washington what it all means, with such an air of nonchalance about such sad things that Washington can’t help but hug them.

“Oh, y’know,” they say. “Reassurance of tomorrow. Don’t wanna wake up terrified for each other’s lives again. Love’s a scary thing when you don’t have anybody else.”

Washington withholds his tears, pushing them back until he hears the same conversation again, and again, and again, and finally realizes that not only is it a reassurance of tomorrow, but a reassurance that they won’t spend tomorrow alone.

-

It’s the quiet love that speaks volumes.

Washington has learned this, again and again, taught by his students and his children, until they become better teachers than he’s ever been.

So he tries not to speak, instead observing, instead listening, so he can map their personalities out in his head until he knows each and every one of them better than they ever believed they could be known.

-

And with his guidance, his acceptance, his love, they become new people. Not different per se, just less lonely, more comfortable, whether it be in their own skin or around other people.

Each to be described with a word that simplifies all the complicated things that Washington couldn’t possibly explain.

Peggy is loved.

Theo is sunshine.

Mulligan is cared for.

Maria is strong.

Thomas is allowed.

Aaron is in between.

Alexander is safe.

Lafayette is adored.

Eliza is herself.

Angelica is ace.

And finally, the quietest of his children, the one he started with and feels he will end with, the one Washington finally gets to see smile after a year -

Laurens is John.

  
  


**not everyone deserves to know**

**the real you.**

**let them criticize who they think**

**you are.**

**\- somebody**

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed!!!!!!! thank you so much for reading :) <3


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